Students indicated an interest in mainstream rather than ‘indie’ musical artists

This graphic visualizes inter- and intra- genre preferences among respondents to the fall 2012 poll conducted by UCS and the BCA surveying interest in acts for Spring Weekend. The size of each genre's exterior band represents the total number of votes received by that genre in the poll. The connecting segments represent shared tastes between genres. The width of each of the segments is proportional to the total number of votes the corresponding genre received among voters of the source genre. (Interactive graphic by Data Science Contributor Madeline Kau and Data Science Editor Andersen Chen.)

As students gear up for Spring Weekend with colorful tanks, kegs and perhaps — given Saturday’s forecast — rain ponchos, their attention is turning to the main event — a two-day musical extravaganza on the Main Green. This year’s lineup features DJ A-Trak and rapper Kendrick Lamar headlining among other performers. But students put forth a rather different body of desired artists for the concerts, according to a poll conducted last semester by the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Brown Concert Agency to survey student interest in potential Spring Weekend acts.

With over 700 votes, rock was identified as the most popular genre among poll respondents, closely followed by pop, hip-hop and electronic music, respectively. Country, jazz, jam band, soul and funk each received close to 120 votes.

The three acts that received the most votes were the popular foot-stomping British folk band Mumford and Sons, The Lonely Island — the comedy trio based on Saturday Night Live — and Macklemore, the up-and-coming rapper of “Thrift Shop” fame.

None of the acts booked for this year’s Spring Weekend made the top 10, though rapper Kendrick Lamar, who will headline Saturday night, placed 13th among surveyed students.

Mapping the rock diaspora

Though a plurality of students identified rock as their genre of choice, most of the acts they actually suggested tend to fall more comfortably into the hip hop and electronic camps. Among the top 20 acts, only The Black Keys might be classified a rock act in the conventional sense, though Mumford and Sons and Of Monsters and Men have a rock sensibility with folksy underpinnings.

Emma Ramadan ’13, BCA Booking Chair, said it is difficult to book a suitable rock act given the constraints of the BCA budget and the disparate nature of the genre.

“With the rock genre there’s no in-between,” she said. “There are either these big rock names that everyone knows but are out of our budget, or there are these much, much smaller … indie rock bands that could never headline a show.”

Olivia Petrocco ’13, music director at WBRU-FM, attributed the genre disparity to a shifting landscape of music distribution.

“The alternative radio panel sound that gets played has fractured a lot recently with the differentiation of where you can get your music from,” she said. “The Internet is such a dynamic channel for music to travel through that the alternative panel is not as definitive as it once was.”

Confronting the mainstream

Though students indicated that Brown has a reputation for being a mecca for alternative music, this notion seems to stand in opposition to the top 10 acts, most of which enjoy regular airtime on Top 40 radio stations.

“The perception that people have of Brown of being this hipster school where everyone has these really (alternative) music tastes comes from a really small but really vocal minority,” Ramadan said.

On campus, preference for underground or unheard acts comes with a certain cachet, students said.

“People are very sensitive about it. It’s like your wardrobe. It says so much about you, and people make judgments about it even if you don’t want them to,” said Michelle Zheng ’16.

Others suggested that Brown students have more in common with mainstream culture than they think they do.

“It also could be the fact that we’re not as definitely hip as either we like to think ourselves to be or the world sees us to be,” said Lucy Stephenson ’13.

Hip-hop and electronic demand

The popularity of hip-hop and electronic music acts among respondents might correspond to a desire to dance and unwind during the concert, students said.

“The people that tend to be more passionate about their interests in music are the people that are associating Spring Weekend with an enormous party, the analog of Coachella at Brown,” said Clayton Aldern ’13, former editor-in-chief of post- Magazine.

The two genres with the most shared respondents were hip-hop and pop, with 300 students responding that they listened to both.

“Hip-hop and electronic shows are more conducive to the kinds of experiences people want to have on Spring Weekend,” Ramadan said.

“It’s more about what people are going to be engaging with in a concert. That will be very different from the experience that’s just delivered through an MP3 player,” Stephenson said.

“The same stuff’s playing at all the parties,” said Sasha Teninty ’14. “What people like to dance to is universal.”

Alternative Spring Weekend experiences

The popularity of acts like The Lonely Island among poll respondents suggests that party atmosphere and communal value of Spring Weekend may be more important than the quality of the musical experience, students said.

“For me (the music) is not that important,” Perocio said. “I just go to participate in campus culture.”

“In some cases it’s the music, and in some cases it’s just about the overall experience, like being with your friends and having fun,” Ramadan said.

Correction: A previous version of this article’s headline incorrectly referred to pop and hip hop as the most popular genres among students. In fact, BCA poll results showed rock to be students’ favorite genre. The Herald regrets the error.

Oh yeah, so you can get Snoop Dog but not Bad Religion, Social Distortion or The Gaslight Anthem…. REALLY????

C’mon. The BCA loves hip hop and then they pick an choose their (and their friends) super lame, hip hop favorites (that are usually way over-hyped no-names that nobody will remember in 5 years). Voice of our generation- my ass!

BCA411

We were only able to get Snoop Dogg for the 50th anniversary of SW when we had much more money than we do normally. I can assure you that we never, ever pick and choose acts we or our friends want instead of acts we think students want. We would never get away with that because we are heavily supervised by an amazing faculty advisor in the SAO, UFB, and the student body. Apart from Mumford and Sons, who is out of our budget, there were no rock names in the top 10, which was instead filled with pop, hip hop, and electronic names, so that’s what we went for.

BH

Then I would submit that BCA would better serve the student body by advocating for a budget sufficient to obtain better acts. Four years of rap and techno- we get it, BCA likes rap and techno. Time to move on and get some actual music on the Main Green.

You’re sleeping under a rock if you’re calling Kendrick and A-Trak no names. Your opinion is as wrong as it is irrelevant, and I can assure you that given this poll (which seems to disagree with you) nobody thinks your indie-hipster lineup is appealing in the slightest.

heyholetsgo

OMG, PLEASE. Let’s not pretend this Hip-Hop kid is fucking Shakespeare. Whenever there is a rap artist that can spell his name right, the hip-hop community tries to sell the kid as a poet. I don’t want an indie-lineup, I want real rock music that is true and not pseudo intellectual BS-rap. I know Brown and many other unis have departments dedicated to intellectualizing rap (African/Black Studies), but this doesn’t qualify your comment the slightest.

lame-ninja-be-quiet

U mad bro?

anon

While I do love both childish and kendrick a lot it would be great to get a rock band for a change. Like before I came to brown bca got the black keys and mgmt…….i mean COME ON those were awesome.

Confused

Doesnt that pic with the bubble show people prefer alternative? There were way more alternative than hip hop, and there was only one electronic act.